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The abstract is available here: https://uscholar.univie.ac.at/o:1633098

This study focuses on the relationship between the mainstream press and right-wing protests in Brazil. Guided by the “protest paradigm” literature, my goal was to understand how reporters in the Gl...

Since its introduction in 2006, journalists found ways to incorporate the microblogging platform Twitter into their daily work routines. Communication scholars quickly viewed the journalistic adopt...

Journalists express support for providing a diversity of viewpoints in their reporting, but how is this reflected in their content? This study compared survey results of U.S. political journalists’...

This study examines the growing journalistic practice of embedding full tweets in online political news coverage. Against the background of a hybrid media system, we pursue three research goals. Fi...

A significant part of the interaction between journalists and their sources in political journalism is informal or not mentioned in the media content. Visibility/invisibility and formality/informal...

The article reviews the main concepts and dilemmas illustrating the debate on the connections between media and politics. Considering that experiences in Political Communication are manifested in u...

Although the prominence of fact-checking in political journalism has grown dramatically in recent years, empirical investigations regarding the effectiveness of fact-checking in correcting misperce...

Expert voices in media coverage facilitate a well-functioning democracy by informing public debates about policy issues. Experts can fill knowledge gaps in reporting, fact-check statements, refute ...

In this article we examine PolitiFact’s fact-checking process. We collect a random sample of 858 fact-checks and evaluate them in the light of criteria based on or inspired by fact-checking literat...

Research shows the prominence afforded to political actors in BBC journalism strongly reflects the balance of power in Westminster, with major political parties, and the ruling party in particular, tending to predominate. This article examines the extent to which these patterns of news access and exposure are also evident in BBC journalists’ following of and interactions with MPs on Twitter, using data from 90 BBC journalists’ Twitter accounts (extracted in February 2019). We find that MPs from centrist parties have the highest average number of BBC journalist followers, and are interacted with and mentioned more by BBC journalists than other MPs. MPs in parties exclusively representing constituencies outside of England are the least followed, mentioned or interacted with. Of the two main political parties, Conservative MPs have the highest average BBC following, and are mentioned more often. Current and former Cabinet members have a higher BBC following and more interactions and mentions than their Shadow Cabinet counterparts. Our findings confirm that elite patterns of news access and exposure have been reproduced on new platforms. Though lending support to claims that the BBC is orientated towards the political centre, they suggest more of an orientation towards the Right than the Left.

Political journalism is a pertinent part of newsrooms across the world. This study aimed to analyze the shifting role conceptions of U.S. political journalists, primarily in reference to the White ...

U.S. journalists covering Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and early administration submitted to unprecedented abuse while normalizing and legitimizing his candidacy and official acts. Many jus...

We propose to submit the existence of the five generic frames advanced by Semetko and Valkenburg [2000. “Framing European Politics: A Content Analysis of Press and Television News.” Journal of Comm...

A deliberative democracy is reliant on an informed electorate discussing issues and presenting persuasive arguments. Individuals acquire information from exposure to political messages. Par...

Part political journalism, travel memoir, political theory, sociology, anthropology, and moral psychology, Michael Ignatieff’s The Ordinary Virtues 1 defies easy description. Over the course of thr...

The previous decade has seen rapid change in political journalism in Australia and the United States, with legacy and emerging news organisations under pressure from interconnected global and local...

This article explores the potential added value of online news media in reporting European Union (EU) politics. Precisely, it examines the extent to which online reporting could generate more promi...

The goal of this paper is to explain media impact on politics by focusing on characteristics of journalist-politician relationships. Based on the concept of political communication cultures, we pre...

The article analyzes the image that O Estado de S. Paulo (one of the main Brazilian newspapers) constructed of the presidential candidate Lula da Silva over the course of five electoral campaigns: ...

Many news organizations have developed policies on the use of named and unnamed sources, including whether the latter can be directly quoted or paraphrased in news stories. In this experiment, we t...

This study examines journalists’ perceptions of fact-checking, a growing journalistic activity focused on assessing the veracity of public claims. Professional journalists working on fact-checking ...

This study examined the relationships among newspaper ad watch coverage, ad tone, and the accuracy of political advertising. A sample of political advertisements (N = 160) was drawn from the Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG) database and other sources for eight U.S. Senate races. Two experts on each race evaluated the ads’ accuracy and their ideological portrayals of candidates, while trained coders analyzed other aspects of the ads. Ad watch coverage from these races (ad watch N = 109) also was content-analyzed. The number of ad watches overall in a race and the number that explicitly criticized ads were positively related with the level of accuracy of political ads and with a tendency to portray their favored candidates closer to their actual ideological position—but the overall number of ad watches also was positively related with a tendency for ads to portray opponents as more extreme than their positions warranted. Ad watches usually tend to scrutinize negative ads more, but ad watch coverage in this study was unrelated with ad tone and with the number of negative ads in a race. Positive ads were rated as more accurate but also more prone to exaggerate the supported candidates’ centrism compared to other ads. Normative and practical implications are discussed.

There is limited knowledge about why political actors are dissatisfied with journalism. This article attempts to answer this question by pointing to individual-level perceptual processes of politic...

This article explores how journalists negotiate notions of autonomy in their daily exchanges with politicians. Based on qualitative data analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted in Chile, this article argues that, when analysed from the perspective of journalists, notions of autonomy appear to be negotiated in three distinct dimensions. First, a professional narrative built upon news values firmly grounded in commercial considerations; second, an organizational narrative that rests upon editorial lines that occasionally become explicit editorial biases, and third, a sense of belonging to an encapsulated community inhabited by journalists, politicians and communication officers. Data analysis suggests that core claims of autonomy in political reporting stem from values of newsworthiness greatly influenced by a commercial logic of audience maximization. This professional autonomy, though, has to be upheld at the organizational and the relational level, and appears tensioned by the appearance of new ...

When it launched in 1999, Malaysiakini made headlines as a new media response to Malaysia’s tight controls on traditional news organizations. Being a so-called internet “pure play” – with no print ...

Journalists increasingly fear that their work may be influenced by advertisers’ interests. While studies have found that commercial advertisers exert pressure on news producers, equivalent research on political advertising is scarce. Using a rigorous methodological approach, we investigate whether party advertising led to three different forms of media bias in newspaper coverage of the Austrian general election in 2013. We combine data on party newspaper advertising (N≈1300), party press releases (N≈1900) and coverage in seven newspapers (N≈4200). There are no statistically significant effects of party advertising on media bias, though there is indicative evidence of differences between media genres. Our findings advance the study of advertiser pressure in the field of political journalism and political communication and clarify a heated public debate.

Since its debut in 2006, Twitter has established itself as a unique platform for news sharing with features, such as “@mentions” and “retweets,” popular among journalists and non-journalists alike. This study examined how journalists share news messages on Twitter. Specifically, the authors investigated whether there is any difference in linking and attribution behavior between journalists for online and prestige traditional news organizations. A content analysis was conducted of a sample of 1175 tweets from 40 journalists from eight news organizations (four prestige traditional and four online) posted during the US government shutdown from October 1 to 16, 2013. This study supports previous research that journalists are more likely to promote content from their own news sites than from other sources. The study also extends agenda-setting theory to journalists’ use of Twitter. When they were not linking to their own news organizations’ work, journalists in the sample were more likely to link to content on...

(2015). Should South African journalists be paying more attention to policy? African Journalism Studies: Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 144-148.

The abstract is available here: https://uscholar.univie.ac.at/o:720220

This article develops a theoretical model consisting of three mechanisms that link metacoverage, a type of election campaign news, to mediatization, a meta-process in which media organizations influence politics. The mechanisms hinge on the point that metacoverage—consisting of both topics and frames—constitutes a rich set of process-oriented cues that influence how campaign organizations adjust to the media logic in the course of performing functions associated with the office-seeking political campaign logic. A case study of 2012 US presidential election news was conducted to illustrate how metacoverage influences campaign strategies.

What impact did the emergence of public opinion polls have on politicians and newspaper journalism? Based on interviews in the 1980s with American journalists and congressmen from the 1930s and 1940s, Susan Herbst argued that while “traditional” methods of assessing public opinion remained ubiquitous, attempts to quantify public opinion were also widespread. This paper offers a critique of her methods, questions the notion of a “transition”, and reports a different set of findings. Based on an exhaustive examination of the Australian metropolitan press during the 1951 referendum, it shows the limited impact of polls on political journalism—indeed, on political calculus more generally—and how heavily Australian journalists and politicians relied on “rational” measures of long standing not discussed by Herbst—results of earlier referenda and of previous elections, as well as the betting odds. It also shows the importance of a range of “traditional” sources—the reception accorded party leaders at campaign ra...

At the Conference of the National People's Party (NPP) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in 2012, Premier Wen Jiabao re-emphasised the urgency of political reform to ensure the legitimacy of the party and to provide a strong institutional underpinning to the construction of a harmonious society based on balanced social and economic development. However, no consensus has emerged either in Sino studies or in political journalism as to the trajectory of these reforms. Nor do senior civil servants have a clear understanding of the logic behind China's new wave of political reforms. Most Sino scholars have focused on the question of whether these reforms represent a move towards democratisation or are just another incremental step in the transition process. This investigation mirrors the core differentiation between China's Constitution and Party (CCP) ideology and Western's democratic values. This article provides an understanding or ‘Road Map’ of China's political reforms. It...

Popular participation lies at the core of democratic governance, yet the mediated conversation of politics has largely been limited to elite sources and professional journalists. New technological alternatives to the mass communication model create opportunities for the non-elite “demotic voice” in the mediated public sphere. However, the expansion of who speaks is not without tensions or efforts by traditionally powerful voices to retain control over communication channels. This article analyzes struggles surrounding the growing role of the demotic voice through a case study analysis of the 2007 CNN/YouTube debates among candidates for the US presidency.

By Maurine H. BeasleyLanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017, 274 pp.In Ruby Black, Maurine Beasley presents an overview of the career of a journalist who is not well known but had an interesting impact ...

Israeli–Palestinian peace is promoted through political and diplomatic channels, as well as indirect channels such as conferences, lectures, meetings, workshops and political journalism. However, there is less awareness of the extensive artistic activity in Israel surrounding peace and its implications for society, or of the uniqueness of the theatrical medium as a public medium that allows its viewers and participants to clarify their conflicts and positions related to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. As part of a large and comprehensive study of plays about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict (which included mapping out and analyzing the themes of 37 plays about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict between 2005–2007, and checking the impact of some of the plays on teenage audiences), this study focused on Israeli theater creators who deal with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The goal was to specify the models, issues and strategies the creators used in plays about the conflict in order to influence viewers’...

On the basis of Scandinavian journalism research this article discusses the changing political roles of news organizations and journalists after the fall of the party press and the dissolution of broadcasting as a state-controlled monopoly. Given these institutional changes, we ask the following: what new roles, if any, are news organizations and journalists playing in the political system? What are the characteristics of these new roles, and how do news organizations use their newfound political power? We address these questions in the context of an institutional approach to the news coupled with Hallin and Mancini's analysis of media systems.

Sex scandals have become a recurring feature of political journalism worldwide. This article discusses the blurring line which divides public from private in contemporary media reporting and explores the changes sweeping Finnish political journalism. The intimate life of politicians has long been a taboo subject in Finnish journalism, but this has been slowly changing since the early 2000s. This article focuses on two cases including the various sex allegations made against Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen in 2005–2009 and the text-messaging scandal involving the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ilkka Kanerva in 2005 and 2008. Our argument is that scandals have the effect of softening the boundaries between different media and creating greater coherence in the media field.

This article deals with the Brazilian desire to know and voice an opinion about everything which might be regarded as a true reflection of the facts. This need arises from a long history of informational and democratic exclusion. In asserting the public's right to be heard, it is argued that patience is a virtue. The author describes the different stages in the democratisation of communication in Brazil, which might serve as a way to effectively obtain our ultimate goal: the free and fair expression of opinion in all the different forms of media.

As an emerging democracy in Africa, the political communication system of South Africa has undergone major shifts since the early 1990s. Democracy brought greater and constitutionally protected freedom of the media. This freedom was, however, seen as linked to certain responsibilities for the media to fulfil as democratic institutions. Ongoing clashes between the media, politicians and the government have made it clear that there is no consensus about what media freedom and responsibility mean in the context of a new democracy. In order to assess the political communication system within South Africa, against the background of the new wave of democracy that has swept the globe since the early 1990s, a structural analysis of the political economic, regulatory and policy conditions underpinning the political communication system is not sufficient. Attention should also be paid to the dynamic, cultural dimensions of political communication – the attitudes, value frameworks and mutual expectations of...

Colonel House was one of the most influential men in the United States during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. As the president's political confidant, House served him as a trusted counselor and as his personal representative abroad. The colonel, as House was known, drew information and opinion from an array of diplomatic and political figures to use in advising the president. Although historians have made House's association with these men part of their studies of Wilsonian statecraft, they have allowed his similar association with many journalists to remain basically unstudied. However, House made the knowledge he garnered from the journalists a significant source of his advice to Wilson. He was also a conduit of news and opinion from the White House for the journalists. By exploring how House interacted with journalists, this essay documents the important role they played in his work, and it provides insight into the era's political journalism, particularly during World War I. It also suggest...

Despite its very small audience, Sky News (to date, Australia's only locally-produced 24-hour news channel) has recently become an important player in the Australian politics/media landscape. In 2007, Sky had a series of successes including hosting the only leaders’ debate of the federal election and being the first channel to predict and announce the election outcome. More broadly, Sky is having a significant impact on the way in which news is reported in Australia. It has become a key journalistic source and has encouraged a faster, longer news cycle and a digital newsroom, content-packaging approach to journalism. Sky is also influencing the behaviour of Australian politicians, increasing their sensitivity to media coverage and prevailing news values and acting as a key site where they try to influence broader media reporting but also shape political outcomes such as leadership battles. This article examines these factors and considers the nature of the “elite–elite communication” that is taking place ...

This piece investigates the role of news media and journalists in setting political agendas. It presents evidence to challenge the agenda-setting paradigm most often adopted in such research. Instead it argues for greater employment of methods and perspectives more usually employed in media sociology. It then presents findings from research on Members of Parliament (MPs) in Britain. The findings, based mostly on semistructured interviews with 40 MPs, offer some interesting perspectives on the relationship between political journalism and the political process at Westminster. The overall conclusion is that intense media attention on issues can shift political agendas and policy development, but not according to the simple stimulus-response model of agenda-setting commonly employed. More often, news content and journalists play a significant role in setting agendas because politicians use them, in a variety of ways, to promote or negotiate agendas and policy options among themselves. In other words, journal...

Political accountability is defined as an important aspect of scrutiny. By analysing newspapers at three different points in time (1961, 1981 and 2001), this study suggests that the kind of scrutiny often mentioned in the literature, characterised by thorough investigations and disclosures of political wrongdoings, barely exists in the local press. By identifying other forms of scrutiny more closely related to ordinary news reporting, the study shows that one-third of the 1500 articles analysed display some degree of scrutiny. The local press plays an important role in communicating information and critique concerning the ways in which local authority service provision works and how political responsibilities are fulfilled. This study indicates that this role has been strengthened during the second half of the 20th century.

The boundaries between news and entertainment, and between public affairs and pop culture, have become difficult if not impossible to discern. At the intersection of those borders sits The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, a hybrid blend of comedy, news, and political conversation that is difficult to pigeon hole. Although the program often is dismissed as being “fake” news, its significance for political communication may run much deeper. This study first locates The Daily Show within an emerging media environment defined by the forces of technological multiplication, economic consolidation, and discursive integration, a landscape in which “real” news is becoming increasingly harder to identify or define. It then offers an interpretive reading of the program that understands the show not as “fake news,” but as an experiment in journalism. It argues that the show uses techniques drawn from genres of news, comedy, and television talk to revive a journalism of critical inquiry and advance a model of deliberative...

This essay critically assesses the “demonology of spin” which has dominated British political journalism, and academic writing on public relations since the rise of New Labour in the 1990s. It reviews the history of British political public relations (PR), and traces the emergence of journalistic hostility to the professional communication practices of New Labour in government. This “demonology” is viewed in the context of the professional rivalry born of mutual interdependence between PR practitioners and political journalists, and assessed as an inevitable consequence of that competition. While arguing for ethical constraints on both PR and journalistic professionals, the article concludes that an adversarial relationship between both groups is an important safeguard against the excesses of either.

With the liberalization of European Broadcasting from the 1980s and the early identification by new commercial channels of sporting events as key content to encourage viewing/subscription, the relationship between sports and media organizations has inevitably become closer and more lucrative. However with the amendment of the European Union's (EU) Television Without Frontiers Directive in 1997 a new element-the state-entered the equation, rendering this relationship all the more complex. This article demonstrates the extent to which, in the modern era, sports journalism can only offer a truly comprehensive account of events by adopting approaches more commonly associated with business and political journalism. It does so by examining the biggest Irish "sports" story of 2002: not the Irish teams participation in the World Cup but the subsequent sale of broadcast rights for that team's home games to BSkyB. The narrative throws light on the increasingly complex relationship between sport, commercial, and pub...